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'Bones' goes to the dogs
I'm a little pissed at Bones at the moment. Yeah, it was a good episode -- the show I remember, in fact -- but it had a few too many stupid Booth jokes, there was an unnecessary and convoluted vocabulary bit, the guest star was kind of random, and it got rid of a NotZach that I actually liked. But mostly I'm pissed because I'm still crying over that last scene. Wah!
This spoiler is thinking bad thoughts about Michael Vick right now.
Booth's son finds a half-decomposed finger in a bird's nest, which causes some dismay. Not for Parker -- he thinks it's kind of cool -- but for Booth, who is convinced Parker will get around to being traumatized. While he's waiting for Parker to turn into Ted Bundy, he asks Brennan and Co. to help look for the body the finger belongs to. Conveniently, the body is found on National Park grounds, so it's an FBI case.
The body belongs to Dr. Seth Elliot, a divorced veterinarian with a bad gambling habit. He also recently tackled a guy who tried to steal a supply of ketamine from the veterinary medical supply, and was hailed as a hero. That's a start...
Casts of the fatal wound show that Eliot was killed by a dog with sharpened teeth. The drug dealer has a dog, and Schazi's teeth are filed, but they aren't the right shape. A prescription bottle in the car points the team to Donald Timmons, an old friend of Elliot's for high school. Timmons' son, Robbie, occasionally worked at the vet's office. Timmons says his son is heading for med school -- he's even got a third-year med student for a tutor. That tutor, Andrew, verifies Robbie's story, but he's there only long enough to show off his suturing technique and to suggest that Elliot was a drug addict.
Then the case takes another turn: The team finds dog-fighting photos on Elliot's PDA, time-stamped the day of his death. They're not pleasant. But one of the photos shows a dog toy Brennan recognizes -- it belongs to Gladys, Timmons' very well trained pit bull. That's not enough for a warrant -- there's a couple million dog toys like that floating around -- but particulates found in the car indicate that a substance used to clean astroturf was there, and the dog-fighting ring is covered with astroturf. Since that substance was delivered to the Timmons farm, they've got their warrant.
They show up at the farm with an expert -- Cesar Milan, TV's Dog Whisperer. Apparently he's really good, because he's able to calm a room full of half-starved, brutalized dogs with his voice (Although if he could tame Cartman on South Park, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.) Cesar gets to show off his dog whispering skills and he and Brennan finally find the weapon -- a dog named Ripley. Ripley was brought to Eliot's vet clinic to be put down, because the owners didn't realize the itty bitty puppy they got would turn into a huge dog. Grrr. Because Ripley was perfectly healthy, Karen says Eliot saved Ripley and found him a good home. Unfortunately, that home turned out to be not so good.
Timmons claims he rents out the barn to an anonymous company that just pays cash. Plus, he was at a seminar in Chicago when the murder occurred. Examining the pictures, Brennan realizes it wasn't Eliot patching up the fighting dogs -- it was Andrew, the med student. Eliot was trying to expose the right. Brennan and Booth bring Ripley to the barn, and a little Dog Whispering shows that Andrew was Ripley's master. Robbie confesses that he witnessed the attack, and that Andrew is guilty. Now they need to track down the rest of the dog-fighting ring. That, apparently, will happen off-screen.
Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends
- I tried to resist the easy headline. I failed. I'm so ashamed...
- This episode really felt like a return to form -- the characters were acting recognizable, and there were consequences of what happened last season. We FINALLY got to hear someone talk about how freaked out they are about Zach, and Hodgins and Angela were appropriately awkward around each other.
- But I'm not letting the writers of the hook for the "dumb Booth" moments. Come on -- he seriously never heard of "playing possum?" He couldn't figure out that a Canid was a kind of dog? Give him some credit.
- But then we got the Booth parenting scenes, and all was right with the world. Boy, he's great with that kid. I buy Booth as a father -- trying his best, freaking out over some things, stumbling, but ultimately doing his best.
- And how about his advice to Parker -- walk away when it's for himself, and stay and fight when it's for someone else. That's so perfectly Booth.
- I think we can all agree that dog fighting = bad. Still, the storyline was a punch in the gut.
- I'm slightly confused -- did Timmons really not know about the dig fighting on his property? Or was he fine with being caught for dog fighting as long as his son wasn't caught for murder?
- Brennan also hit me this episode as she bonded with Ripley, and then gave his eulogy over his grave. Oof, She was so excited to adopt Ripley, and so angry when she realized what happened. Booth was right -- what she said was "as much as any good dog could hope for."
- Even her objections to Booth about eulogizing Ripley made sense -- "Ripley's dead. Plus, he's a dog, with limited vocabulary skills."
- And what do you think of Brennan telling Booth Ripley reminds her of him? "He's got warm and reassuring brown eyes, and he's capable of great violence."
- The Cesar Milan guest spot still strikes me as kind of pasted on. Does Fox produce his show or something?
- I'm torn on the Sweets role this week. His interaction with Booth and Parker was perfect (and you just know Sweets has been someone's monkey boy in the past), but his bit with Hodgins was a bit weird. First he's talking like Hodgins is a suicide risk, then he's saying he's fine with Hodgins "coping mechanism of hate." Weird.
- The enervating bit bugged me. First, it's such an obscure word, and then, there's no way karen would have used it in the context she did. She wasn't saying there's nothing nervous-making about a divorced man and single woman sleeping together, she was saying there's not wrong o nothing unusual about it. It was too much of a stretch.
- OK, I liked Starret, the NotZack of the week. First of all, he was played by Michael Badalucco, who I just like, and second, he seemed like a good guy. Yes, he had a ridiculous number of past professions (car salesman, park supervisor, veterinary assistant...), but it worked for me. Besides, he stood up to Hodgins when Hodgins was being an ass, and I like that.
- Brennan tried to reassure Booth that Parker finding a finger wasn't going to scar him for life -- after all, she found a dead neighbor when she was a little kid, and nothing's wrong with her! Of course, there was that stretch of time when she staged her own death -- pretending to drown in the bathtub, faking electrical shock, staging a hanging -- but that's normal right? Right?
I think the bit with Sweets prodding Hodgins actually made some sense. After all, it wasn't Hodgins' behavior that was actually the problem, it was his denial. Hating the world after a bunch of awful events isn't unnatural, but he had to realize that's what he was doing in order to work his way through it. I too thought the father/son scenes were excellent. David Boreanaz really does a great job portraying that side of Booth. Having a son around the same age as Parker probably helps. :)
Patrick | Sep 17, 2008 8:33:18 PM | #I totally think they should keep Jimmy Berlu...uhh... Michael Badalucco. He was GREAT and meshed with the dynamics of the group really well.
Stacy | Sep 17, 2008 8:41:01 PM | #I loved to see Bones tackle dogfighting. It's still shockingly prevalent, so anything to keep up awareness is really great. More info on facts and what you can do here: http://www.hsus.org/acf/fighting/dogfight/
Totally agreed on the stupid Booth stuff, by the way. And I thought it was interesting that Brennan seemed so affected by the dog remains when she's often so matter-of-fact about human remains. Something to explore in the future, I hope--it'd be interesting to see her with a pet.
Liz | Sep 17, 2008 8:42:54 PM | #This episode did me in on a number of fronts, but the dogfighting angle just made me too sad to watch some of the scenes. I know where they got the images they showed (there's a site that I don't remember the name of that has been trying to ban all forms of dogfighting for years, and images that were shown on Bones are also on the website), and I've lived in enough rural areas to see the results of dog fighting first hand, but it still doesn't make it any less painful to see. My own punishment for people who would do such things is too brutal and somewhat inhumane to describe here...let's just say that it involves stripping the participants naked and slathering them with beef juices and leave the rest to your imagination. I loved how Brennan described dogfighting as being common among cultures that are evolving or some such; I guess the United States is not as civilized as folks like to think.
I've decided that Parker is my clone. Not only did I have a nonchalant attitude towards odd things (such as finding a human finger in a nest; mine wasn't that, but I did find the remains of a mostly-eaten deer carcass in a forest clearing when I was about Parker's age, and I didn't freak out either), but I also had a "girl problem" very similar to his. In my case, there was a rather tall and large girl in my class who came to my family's apartment where I lived over in Germany and demanded to know why I was holding hands with another girl instead of her. My father thought it was funny, but my mom yelled, "He's only in first grade, for God's sake!" At least I didn't get dragged around like a sock monkey, though...
If I'm not mistaken, Temperance Brennan in the book series has at least one pet (although I think it's a cat). It would be perfectly fitting for her to have a pet on the show. Anthropologically, she would find it completely logical to have a dog or cat, as cultures have been domesticating dogs for centuries. Cats, of course, are never really domesticated...we are merely their slaves and are led to think we have tamed them...
Nice to see the characters back in true form. Pity the TV Guide blurb has already ruined the "surprise" for next week. I won't repeat it here, as I don't care for spoilers. Obviously certain TV people got into the peyote recently.
Revenant | Sep 17, 2008 9:00:56 PM | #Oh, and no worries about the bad pun in the title. It could've been worse...you could've said that this was a "ruff" episode to watch, your emotions were "hounding" you the entire episode, you were glad Sweets gave Booth "pointers" on dealing with Parker, you had to "paws" the episode several times to wipe away tears...and so on, and so forth. :P
Revenant | Sep 17, 2008 9:09:16 PM | #Yup, the end got me. I'm such a sucker for dogs. Good ep. It was nice to see a case centered episode.
kirra | Sep 18, 2008 7:11:44 AM | #I thought Brennan's eulogy at the end was also a Zack reference.
pth | Sep 18, 2008 10:46:09 AM | #Ug. All I can say is our 3 dogs got lots of hugs and extra treats last night, especially our puppy princess Little Bit. I found her this spring trying to get out of traffic and after a search for her people we adopted her. Our vet said she'd been lost for a long time (she was all bone), and she got to be hugged the entire time we were watching the ep. I live in an area were dog fighting rings get broken up fairly often, so the idea of who could have found her or gotten her if we gave her up still scares me. This way I know she has a good home, friends, and she's no longer skin and bones.
KaDe | Sep 18, 2008 12:07:03 PM | #This was an important episode as dog fighting, cock fighting, all types of animal cruelty need to be stopped. It was heartwrenching in many respects.
Another important show pertaining to dog fighting was shown 2 weeks ago on National Geographic.
The show Dog Town, a real place in Utah that takes in many animals other places would put to sleep, took several of the Michael Vick dogs that even PETA wanted to put to sleep, and is attempting to rehabilitate them.
The 2 hour show has a lot of positive things to report about the Dog Town adventures with these animals.
Dog Town is part of Best Friends and I always try to send them whatever I can in contributions as it is such a worthy place - even if no one ever wants these animals which include every type of critter you can imagine, dogs, cats, horses, birds, rabbits, etc., etc., the critters will always have a forever home at Best Friends which is located in a canyon on lots of land in Utah.
The people who work there with the animals are truly angels.
The show Dog Town is on every Friday on National Geographic Channel after Dog Whisperer.
Every week there are new adventures with different dogs that have ended up there.
Thank you Bones for caring about our four legged friends! That was a great episode.
DaisyRose | Sep 18, 2008 12:34:21 PM | #I immediately thought of his role in Freaks and Geeks when Sweets not so subtly inferred that he'd once been a monkey boy! I loved Sweets in this episode - he homed in on Hodgins'grief and then irritated him into talking. I'm so glad this show's characters actually have feelings similar to real people. I get so sick of people having intense relationships, break up and then become best friends immediately without any awkwardness - I really felt for Hodgins in this, he must feel his world is falling apart. He tried to have the same type of relationship with NotZack the team used to have with Jonathan (the boss before Cam) which was quite fatherly.
I hope this dumbing down of Booth is not going to be a trend this season - I was pissed off when they made Booth summarily violate UK traffic laws just because he didn't agree with them (which Booth would never do) and now this stupidity on "playing possum" Booth is a smart guy let him remain so.
When is Caroline Julian coming back? I miss her...
Cam saying "not an appropriate use of your boss" after Hodgins called her to get rid of Sweets cracked me up.
pth, thank goodness you said that! Her eulogy was almost entirely a metaphor for Zach! She didn't want to blame the dog for killing someone, she blamed his master, "humans should take a lesson," etc... That hug with her and Booth was so perfect for them!
Sweets was excellent in this I think. The suicide risk bit was to bug Hodgins into talking. The hate bit was really, really good. What he said about each person was dead-on for how I think he would view them all. TJ Thyne is incredible!
I wouldn't mind the Booth jokes if he wasn't so goofy almost all the time, like when interviewing people. Not that he's SOO goofy when he's doing that, but that you can tell he's smirking and not being as professional as I think he used to be on cases. Still loved tonight's though, and I think it did return to form more too. I thought it was great when Brennan asked if Booth thought he would get in trouble with Rebecca, and he said she may not find out, and Brennan goes, "So, yes."
Sarah | Sep 19, 2008 6:42:48 AM | #Rarely am I disappointed with "Bones". Even more rarely have I read such an awful review. The content of the review was not bad, but the writing was so horrible that I asked a friend to scrape her fingernails on a chalk board for me so that I could enjoy something less bad.
How do people land jobs as TV reviewers? This person MUST have father in the business or something like that.
"The guest star was kind of random." Think about that for 5 or 10 seconds. All right, now what does it mean? I tried before I began writing this for half an hour to be random. I didn't come close, not even to "kind of" random. Does the reviewer mean the actor chosen was chosen at random? I don't know. But you can see the problem I had with this writer's "writing". I had to stop at the second sentence for half an hour to try to determine what was meant. I didn't get kind of close to figuring it out, either.
Never mind about what "random" means in this context. I have given up giving it some mind anyway. "Kind of" is not only informal, it is very close to being casual. I mean casual in the same sense as I do when I tell you that wearing a Hawaiian shirt to a board meeting is casual -- too casual. Oh, all right, then, yes. I seem to be acting like a grammar cop (policeman?). But the use of "kind of" as a casualism is not an example -- well, not necessarily -- bad writing. It is, however, unarguably sloppy thinking. Here is a writer who is going to tell us all about an episode of a television program, and -- still in the second sentence, mind -- the "kind of" trumpets to the readers: Never mind! See the show yourself! You already think better than I do!
But I don't digress. By that I mean, I return to that second sentence to try to understand it better. The problem for me with the reviewers writing is that there is no apparent attempt to try to organize any thinking at all. Good writing is organized thinking on paper. (Bad writing is myriad more things than disorganized writing, mind, but usually one can spot bad writing first by the presence of a lack of presence of organized thinking.) My example of this is the writer's use of "NotZach". As I hinted at earlier, I like "Bones". I would go so far as to say I am a fan. I would say that I am a big fan, except my weight has no relevance here. All I am saying is that even though I have seen every episode of "Bones", I don't know what is meant by "NotZach". Now, perhaps I have forgotten it. Maybe I was at the refrigerator during the exact same moment in all the episodes that used the term. But, perhaps MORE likely is that the writer could have reminded us little people what the term means. Frankly, I don't think the term was ever used in the show. But I'll never know, because the writer failed to do what good writers do: take the reader by the hand and show them everything the writer means as the essay unfolds.
Well, that's enough for now. By that I mean that I am graciously stopping, both to lay off the writer -- who might be new at the job -- and to let my fingers rest. There is more to discuss about the first sentence, and even the second, believe it or not.
1.) Billingsgate. (Pissed is not only casual in the sense that is was used, but vulgar in any public forum.)
2. Unanswered questions raised. (Stupid Booth jokes. Is that in any way related to stupid pet tricks? Even though I saw the episode in question, I would like to know what the writer considered stupid. Yet MORE unorganized thought.)
3. "It was a good episode" erroneously presumes that the reader is abreast of the episode under discussion.
And if I commented on all of those things, there is still sentence # 3, which is the last of the first paragraph. I've no desire to talk about the entire episode. I'm too young to throw my life away like that.
"Bones" rocks. Please let at least a semi-professional writer review a few episode.
Gene H
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